Paranoia
by Bookworm Gal
Summary: Sequel to "Twitchy." How has Glen progressed since the events that first brought him in contact with the Cybertronians? Leo and Simmons pay him a little visit. Glen does not react well to their presence in his home.


**I am an evil individual, but I possess a wonderful idea for a sequel to "Twitchy" and now it shall be written. It shall demonstrate the continued paranoia of one individual. If you can't guess who, go and read "Twitchy" first. Hope you like it.**

Paranoia

"Are you sure this is the place?" asked Leo uncertainly. "This doesn't look like the main headquarters of someone who is an expert in analysis of in computers, let alone someone who knows one of the biggest government secrets EVER."

Simmons rolled his eyes, "You live in a dorm, selling kitten calendars. I don't think you should judge."

"Alright Robo-Warrior," sighed the young man. "At least he isn't living with his mother and working in a deli."

The ex-Sector Seven agent and current agent of NEST smirked, "No, he lives with his grandmother. Now, quiet. This guy makes your Game Boy security look like tissue paper." He then muttered softly, "And she lived with me, not the other way around. There's a difference."

"Yeah, it means that you need her help with the rent," the boy announced as the man rang the door.

After a few moments, a woman with more wrinkles than a college boy's shirt, slathered in face cream, and curlers covering her head opened the door. She glared at the pair sourly.

"Hello, Mrs. Whitmann," the dark-haired man greeted cheerfully. "I'm a friend of your grand-son and this is my son." He hugged Leo close to him in what clearly was meant as a paternal fashion. "Might we have a word with him?"

"Stay on the plastic," she muttered after a moment before turning back towards the interior. "GLENNNN! GLENNY! YOU GOT COMPANY!"

She led them inside as Leo tried to regain his hearing. As they proceeded through the house (taking care to remain on the plastic runners on the floor), there were some obvious oddities. The television set, tuned to CNN, seemed to have a series of bungee cords across the top, trapping it in place like a fly in a spider's web. The landline phone appeared to have a chain attaching from the handset to the wall, bolting the thing in place. A quick glance in the kitchen as they walked by demonstrated that even the microwave oven was bound to the counter by a few pieces of 2X4 and giant bolts.

As the elderly woman, wearing an oversized and ancient bathrobe, brought them to the backroom, the amount of technology seemed to increase. As did the unbelievable styles of the chosen forms of restraint. In the bedroom, a man sat in a computer chair uneasily. His very posture spoke of nervousness. On his desk, a large cage enclosed the monitor of the computer and the hard drive. The keyboard was covered by chicken wire stapled to the desktop. And the mouse appeared to have a short, metal chain attached between it and a bolt driven into the wood. The man, wearing a t-shirt and shorts, seemed to be pecking the keys between the gaps of the chicken wire gingerly. As he caught sight of his visitors, he jerked in surprise.

"Oh, no, no, no, no, NO!" he screeched hysterically and pointing at Simmons as soon as his grandmother left. "You shouldn't be here. You can't be here. I told you, I'd help you with your research_ if_ you kept far away from me and made sure absolutely no one or no _thing_ knew I was involved. Now you show up on my doorstep with someone. I don't know if he'll bring them down on my head. He could be the next Witwicky. I'm going to end up getting on their radar again."

"Calm down," the agent ordered firmly. "I just brought him here to talk. You are one of the best at what you do. And since you refuse to be directly involved in any of this, I thought that you could…"

"Glen Whitmann?" asked Leo suddenly. "Dude, you're like a legend. They said you could break into or decipher anything. But what happened? A couple of years ago, you vanished off the radar completely. Not a peep from the conspiracy theory guys, and that's unusual. I always wondered why a complete genius at finding the real deal on _anything_ would just give it all up and I thought that maybe you'd been kidnapped by the government or paid off or something. Did they torture you to make you vanish?"

Glen groaned, "No, I worked hard to disappear. Only Maggie is still in touch with me, except for _this_ danger to my life." He indicated Simmons again. "If _they_ don't know I'm alive, they won't want to kill me. I don't need psycho robots trying to kill me. I can't handle that. I can't. Do you know what those kinds of things can hide as? I saw a cell phone transform and try to shoot us. I saw that freaky, twitchy thing tossing blades of death around the room as Agent Obsession tried to fry it with a flame thrower. Anything could be one of them and I won't know it until it kills me in my sleep. And I saw the transmission. Don't get me started on the transmission about the Witwicky kid."

"I know," nodded Leo. "I got dragged along for the ride. All the way to Egypt. But honestly, I got hurt more by Simmons here and his tazer of pain than the super-sized robot that took out a big chunk of the Pyramid of Giza."

"Great, another target of the Decepticons is in my house," groaned the anxious man. "I'm dead. I'm dead. They're going to kill me and then Grandma is going to be left alone. And she can't be left alone because she'll start buying everything on T.V., and the house'll be full of knickknacks and 'amazing knives that can cut through anything,' and she'll start testing them out like they do on the commercials, and she'll make a real mess, and then she'll get mad because she hates a mess. Why do you think we have all those plastic runners? Not because she thinks they're cool." The babble continued for quite a while.

"Listen, all I need you to do is teach the kid," explained Simmons, trying to break through Glen's increasing hysteria. "Help him out. Make him actually be a benefit to the group. He already has a _small_ amount of computer skill. Build on that. Make use of your ability to teach him to do it. Since you refuse to get directly involved, pass on your skills to this kid so we can still benefit."

"Okay, enough with the 'kid' thing already. It makes me sound like I'm ten and part of the computer club at school," the young man complained.

"Honestly, I'm probably already dead," muttered Glen. "They're already outside waiting for me, aren't they? I'll step out and, _BAM_, I'm dead. All my hard work, all my safety precautions, wasted. I can't believe it."

"Well, if you're essentially dead anyway," commented the agent slowly, "there is no reason why you can't check a few things for us anyway. You know, in your final hours of life."

"Sure, Simmons," he sighed. "I assume you brought them with you."

The dark-haired man smiled and handed over a flashdrive, "You know me so well. I'll be by later for your opinions."

"If I'm dead by then, sorry," muttered Glen, taking the piece of technology from the agent carefully. "This little guy will likely transform as soon as you leave."

"I'll take my chances," Simmons announced. "And consider what I said about teaching Leo. Time for us to go."

As the pair walked out the front door, the young man stared at the older one. He shook his head.

"You planned this. You knew that he'd take the job. You knew that, even as he freaked out and had a near break-down, he would do it."

The agent smirked, "He always does. He freaks out, declares he wanted nothing to do with any of this, and then decides to go ahead anyway. He's as paranoid as can be, terrified that a Cybertronian could get him at any time, but he is the best. And even if his curiosity is mostly canceled out by fear, his oldest instinct is the one that desires to _know_. I know how he works and can get him to work his magic every time."

"So, if you can get his help, why did you bring me? Obviously I'm not his replacement if he still, more or less, works for you," frowned Leo.

"Because it would be nice to have another source if I need something in a hurry," Simmons explained. "Do you realize how long it takes him to do anything with that chicken wire on the keyboard?"

**Hehehe. I just thought it would be fun to stick Glen, Simmons, and Leo in a situation together just to see what would happen. Plus, I got to see how Glen's twitchiness has grown. Hope you liked it.**


End file.
